968

Dear Carolyn,

I hope this reaches you at some point when you’re dizzy with happiness.  Every Collins woman brings in a new voice and a new spirit when she marries.  As I write this, I am looking only at Jeb’s best qualities.  He’s a strong man and a smart man, and that industry and optimism can keep Collinsport alive.  Roger will have a position available for him, and I promise you that it will be one in which he can help the company grow.

I was hardly a delightful mother, but should I ever become a grandmother?  I think I can rise to the challenge so that you can follow your dreams.  You and Jeb are a couple.  The three of us are a family.

All my love,

Mother

956

eSc

– C O L L I N W O O D –

Collinsport, Maine 04605

Jeb,

Willie and Maggie are no longer reliable.  Willie never was.  The tower room shall hold them until you may dispose of them or use them as you please.

904

eSc

– C O L L I N W O O D –

Collinsport, Maine 04605

David stole a book, and while that is inherently (poor choice of words) shameful, I am more disturbed by the nature of the book.  It smells foul, has bizarre — almost impossible — art, and the words within it are not only of a foreign language, but one that makes me want to submit to an attack of nausea when I look at them.  I know this because the sensation goes away when I take my eyes from the words.

I can imagine David stealing a book on anatomy or one of Harry Johnson’s men’s adventure magazines, but why this?

This morning, I woke up from a most disquieting dream, the specifics of which escape me.  But I have no recollection of going to sleep, much less taking off my makeup, etc.

What on Earth is happening?

902

eSc

– C O L L I N W O O D –

Collinsport, Maine 04605

I don’t think I should have feared death.  I should have feared my own family.

ECS

691

Today, I believe we lost Collinwood, or at least we began to.  As David began to laugh like a maniac, the music began.  It was the music that Grandfather Edward forbade.  Now, I know why.  It was the music of sadness and cruelty and sorrow, all dipped in nectar.

ECS

624

Dearest Victoria,

There is one wedding present that I will give to you, but only if you truly want it.

I will answer any question that you wish.  But you may only ask one, and that, only once.

All my love,

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard

 

(ed. note: retrieved from Stoddard Estate. Apparently unsent.)

603

Why am I the only one who seems concerned at all with death?  It is the most inevitable of states.  Is it to be embraced?  If life is a series a little events we create to distract us from the inevitable, why delay that inevitability with mindless trivialities?

But if I die, let it be on my own terms.  Not embalmed, to awaken with acid coursing through my veins, nor cremated, to find myself sealed within an agonizing pyre.

Are there any terms which are our own?  No.  Death controls them all.

There is no Alpha.

E C S

272

The relief I feel is tantamount to the horror I’ve lived for eighteen years.  I just wish they’d snap to it.

ECS

271

Dixi et animam levavi.

ECS

268

It is impossible to relate to you what this day has meant to me.

Carolyn, while we used to be closer, and while this day was not all that it might have been for you, it held inestimable value for me.  No, your sanction of that wedding was hardly necessary, but your willingness to grant it was a magnanimous gesture worthy of the name, Collins.

Dearest David, that you should share with me the secrets of youth and your excavations around Collinwood?  You are a gem, and that gift from you to me was a kindness no words can communicate.  (I could never get your father to divulge the secrets coves, nooks, and crannies!  You made me feel just like Pat Savage, and fulfilled a lifelong dream!)

Keep these notes of thanks, both of you.  You have so often been my happiness, and I so dearly wish I had told you prior.

Love to my loves,

ECS

ps — David, look for the key under the statue of “Digger O’Dell”  Bet you didn’t know about that one!